Writing at Midnight
by Michaela Will
Summary: On the road again between Slayers Next and Try, Lina is working on a spell that she doesn't want the others to know about. Why is this significant to Zelgadis? Spoiler Warning.


_Writing at Midnight_

by Michaela Wills

That damn book.

Lina let loose a sigh and turned away from her work. She rubbed her eyes and stretched one limb then another. Tilting her head she carefully examined the Lighting spell hanging before her. It did seem a bit worn. It put itself out and Lina made a new one.

Gazing at the stars, she judged the time. There was probably an hour or more before Zelgadis would wake to take his shift. Good. In some ways it was nice to be on the road again. The evening quiet and the cool summer nights definitely counted as a reason. The study time alone was another good reason.

With a need to keep watch, Lina could take her time to study new spells in the books she carried. No questions from Zelgadis or Amelia about the magic, no curiosity from Gourry. Privacy on the road can be hard to find, but more so when at an inn sharing a room.

Looking at the materials spread on the ground around her, she found herself enjoying both the mental exercise and the privacy. This was not the kind of work she wanted any of them around while doing: Him in particular.

Scattered across the ground were numerous sheets of parchment, some rolled, some open. A small pile of tomes sat aside, an extra two or three open on the ground. The Lighting spell hung to the side and writing implements remained scattered around. Some laid beside key passages in the open text to mark them. Another sat on a sheet of parchment covered in blots and scribbles while most of the other parchments were marked with circles and underlining. The last set of papers was piled to the side.

After her quick break it was this pile Lina returned to, picking up a pen and checking her cross-reference list. She tucked her legs under her and bowed her head to the matter at hand. It was a tedious process, but in this case she had to make sure the spell would work. To see to that a great deal of effort was necessary on her part.

For most spells, creating a variation is easy. Lina's current project was no such thing. Half the problem lay in the initial spell. That spell itself was a variation on over a dozen other spells, which she was currently trying to divine. It was necessary to know all the original spells, what they contributed, and the variation in order to create her spell. Otherwise it wouldn't work right.

The texts strewn around covered most of the original spells. Some of these had turned out to be basic shamanistic spells and others were rare curses. Hopefully, she had located them all. All the parts of the variation were accounted for by an original spell, but there were some kinks in translation, limitations, lyrical quality and power.

The parchments were notes about the qualities of these particular spells in respect to the variant. Equations on power levels and limitations for some, edits of translation and diagrams of lyrical qualities and their effects for others. General notes about curses, countercurses and power fields.

It all became very time consuming. Then the cross-referencing remained, the double checks of the equations and the continued process of editing the variant incantation, testing it and then finally, using the completed counter spell. With any luck she would manage to finish the project and use the spell. And complex maneuver like this one could take her a year or two to write without the proper resources. Lucky for Lina, she had them.

She stopped marking the cross-reference list and picked up a different pair of papers. She read over the spells before her again. In her hands she held the variant she was changing and the most current copy of the edited incantation.

Sighing, she put aside her revised spell. It was incomplete and would remain incomplete for a long time. The general form was there, but the spell wouldn't work yet. She needed to undo all the effects of all the spells involved, while at the same time avoid creating new defects in the spell's subject. Even with all the resources it would still take her years to write if she couldn't find the time or came across a problem she couldn't easily remedy.

If only . . .

She did think of it at the time. Even with distractions from dragons and mazoku and little boys who turned out to be the Hellmaster and Martina and Gaav and every aspect of Murphy's Law playing out. As calm as she had acted while there, in contact with the Claire Bible, she'd been acutely aware of every second that passed. Somehow she'd known how horribly limited her time was.

Somehow, in the long list of topics covered, she managed to slip in that one important question. How? How do you remove a curse turning a human into part demon and golem? But could she really tell him what she'd discovered?

He never said anything about it. Not even now had he asked.

It was in the wake of the wedding that she had time to remember again. Everything following her encounter with the Claire Bible to Martina and Zangulus' wedding had been a strange blur. Half of it was clear as crystal, and the rest didn't even seem to exist. After the wedding, Martina and Zangulus headed off on their own and the rest of the group stopped at a local inn.

Despite the wedding feast, Gourry, Amelia and Lina had packed away an impressive mid-afternoon snack of vegetable stew and fried chicken before sitting back to chat with the group about their plans.

Sylphiel quickly offered her next travel destination: Zefielia. With a gentle smile she'd invited the others to join her. Lina immediately had declined the invitation and slowly the others mentioned other plans or destinations. As expected, Gourry planned to follow Lina. Amelia came to the conclusion that since Justice had been served it was high time she put in another appearance at home in Saillune. Xellos had even popped in quickly to irk Lina, get put in a headlock and receive a 'love life' rant from Amelia before mentioning that he had other errands to run for Zelas. With a smile, wave and promise to 'pop' by again soon the mazoku disappeared.

As Lina and Gourry firmed up plans to escort Amelia to Saillune, Sylphiel joining them for most of the journey, Lina's eye was caught on Zelgadis.

He just sat there, staring out the window. He didn't speak a word, or even look at the planning group, just sipped at his coffee and stared away. Lina watched him out of the corner of her eye, trying to figure out what the problem was. Something about the way that Zelgadis was acting nagged at her.

A young serving girl slipped over to Zel, raising a query about his drink. Lina watched as the server reached for the cup and Zelgadis hurriedly concealed his hands from her view. The half-conscious motion on Zel's part rocked her. How could she have forgotten? Even more important, how could she tell him?

Amelia called her attention and Lina shrugged off the questioning glances from the princess and Sylphiel. She outwardly involved herself in the planning process again, smiling at the others and speaking gleefully about returning to the open road. But at the same time, she dismally pushed the bones from her snack around her plate with her knife.

As she waved off a worried comment from Sylphiel about a set of little-used roads running along their travel route, Zelgadis finally turned away from the window. He examined the group for a moment and then caught Lina's eye without warning. His slate blue eyes pierced hers and she became acutely aware of what she was holding back from him. He raised an eyebrow, almost asking, but before she could make any reply of any kind, he stood and left the inn.

Lina just gaped at him for a moment. Why didn't he even let her respond? Gourry had slapped her back, making some friendly, joking comment to the others. It jarred Lina's awareness back to the table, and she smiled at the others hard.

Lina had asked. And in some ways, she wished she hadn't. The ache of guilt hung over her. She shoved it aside roughly. She was doing what she could; there was no better answer.

Running a hand through her hair, Lina pushed the red mane aside so she could focus on the cross-referencing again. Glancing quickly at the night sky, she figured she had maybe a half hour until Zel came to relieve her from her shift. By that time all the papers would have to be cleared away.

She did not want Zelgadis to catch her at this project. Taking her newest notes Lina started adding them into the charts. Counting on being able to finish this and few more limitation equations before Zelgadis woke up, she sighed and applied herself to the task. She wrote furiously, becoming completely absorbed in writing.

Lina was so deeply engrossed in her work she didn't even hear Zelgadis approach shortly after.

"Lina, you can--" He spoke as he walked towards her. The sorceress jerked at the voice, sending papers flying everywhere as she instinctively drew power to her hands.

"FIREBALL!"

Zelgadis calmly ducked aside, just barely avoiding the flames. He brushed himself off while eyeing Lina expectantly. She colored at his glance, and tried to present him with a smile that came off more sheepish than winsome.

"Eh heh. Sorry, Zel." She laughed nervously. Noticing the papers and books scattered about, she lunged forward, collecting up her parchments as quickly as she could. Hastily, Lina tucked first one volume and then another into the magic pockets of her cape. Most of the papers were quickly recovered. She rolled a few of the notes on lyrical variants and then finally looked back at Zelgadis as she tucked them in her cape.

He knelt by one of the tomes still lying around, a dictionary of shamanistic spells, thank the gods. Yet to her chagrin, Zel was gathering up the scattered pages of her notes. He straightened his pile, tapping the papers lightly on the ground before standing.

"Zel, give those to me now!" She ordered, praying that for just once, the chimera would comply without hesitation. There was no way of knowing which notes he held, so completely were they scrambled in her flurry. It could be the cross-reference lists. It could be the collective writings of Luo Glaon the Mage. It could be pages on transformations. It could be notes in her own hand on spell variants or . . .

"Lina, what is the meaning of this?" He turned the sheets towards her so she could read them by the dim glow of her lighting spell. Damn, her notes on the information she received from the Claire Bible. He turned the paper back to face him.

"Curses and countercurses," he read. Zel let his eyes drift to the redhead as he flipped to the next page, "Spell power and limitations." He flipped to the next page, "Variations on spells." He continued to shuffle through her work, muttering key words here and there. She dropped her head, turning through the papers in her possession, fervently praying to L-sama herself that she had IT and Zelgadis didn't.

She heard a faint sound and looked up in time to see the sheets drop from his hands and watch them waft to the ground. She lifted her eyes further. Zel just stood staring blankly at the piece of parchment in his hand. Hands that shook slightly as his gaze pierced her to the spot, then returned to the paper, eyes flashing along the lines.

L-sama, you would just have to do this to me?

Lina forced herself to move and gather up the papers Zel had dropped in his moment of lost composure. Watching the chimera out of the corner of her eye, she rolled papers and added them to the magic pockets lining her cape.

Be nonchalant, be cool and non-committal. He's gonna ask, you know that. Make it sound like you're working on for fun. Like you just randomly found that stuff and you weren't looking for it purposely. Let him think whatever he wants, let him think you're cold and selfish, just don't tell him-

"Why?"

. . . the truth. She swallowed hard and forced out a laugh.

"Oh that!" She tried to laugh as she said it, but found she couldn't, so she shrugged instead. "J-just something I've been messing around with. N-no big deal, nothing at all." She gave him a cheesy smile and turned her attention to grabbing a volume on mazoku magic still lying around.

"But it is a big deal," Zelgadis' softened voice reached her. Lina's head snapped up at him, her eyes wide, and she dropped the book again. He still held that dratted paper in one hand but had his eyes fixed on her. "Isn't it?" He tilted his head to the side. "This is why you didn't tell me what you found inside the Claire Bible, isn't it?"

Lina had grabbed the book, all but shoved the volume into a pocket, and now searched for another way to avoid his piercing gaze. She allowed herself to stare at her hands, knitting her fingers through each other, pressing the pads together nervously. Damn him. Damn him for knowing her so well. She sighed.

"It wasn't there, Zel. Not in any usable form. The Water Dragon King never encountered a curse of your kind or magnitude. It just didn't exist at his time. What he did have available was a well of information on magic to draw on, more on curses than I imagined a god would. The Water Dragon King had the knowledge to create both the spell and the counterspell. So I asked for that."

"And you were trying to use what you learned to write my cure."

Lina didn't answer. What was she supposed to tell him? Yes, that's exactly what she was doing. He did not have to know that, though. She turned her head away from him, leaning over to grab another stray paper. Why did it seem like she had so many all of the sudden? She knew there'd been quite a collection of notes, but it'd never seemed this large before.

"Why!" Zelgadis lashed out, grasping her arm hard and turning her to him. She cringed as he shook her. She turned her head away, closing her eyes, "Why are you doing this?" His grip tightened.

"Zel, you're hurting me." She choked out. He jumped back as if burned. With a sigh, Lina pulled herself into tighter control and cast Recovery on her arm. She could feel him still staring at her, but she resolutely watch her arm heal. Did he expect her to answer?

He turned the sheet over to find the original curse on the back. At the sight of those gruesome lines, he took a turn choking, calling Lina's attention.

"How did you get this! It was never printed anywhere, I know that for a fact. The only written copy--" He met her eye then and she raised an eyebrow to his query.

Zelgadis himself had written the only copy of the curse and carried it with him. 'Do you really need to ask how I got it?' the sorceress' gaze clearly stated. Zelgadis found himself coloring as he realized how she managed to 'collect' a copy of the curse.

"I'm not the Bandit Killer for nothing, Zel. I've had that for years. It wasn't long after I met you I copied it." He eyed her suspiciously and Lina jumped back, waving her hands in denial and self-defense. "No! L-sama, no! I was curious! I wanted to see how Rezo did it, I'd never heard of such a curse! Yeesh! I'm cold sometimes, but I'm not that heartless."

She crossed her arms and frowned, jumping slightly as she jarred her arms against each other. With an embarrassed cringe she returned to casting Recovery on herself, eyes trained on the ground.

They were both silent. The buzz of the Recovery spell tapered off, and the redhead let her hands fall to her lap. In the awkward interval, Zelgadis found a place to sit, and quietly added a second Lighting spell around their heads. Lina compulsively played with a piece of paper still loose.

"What were you planning on doing with the finished spell, Lina?" He broke the silence suddenly. "Hold it over my head for some price?" His voice was scathing, she couldn't tell if he believed that or not.

Truth be told, she'd thought about that. She'd thought about all the fun little things she could do with the completed spell. What she'd planned on when and if she finished it was casting it, preferably while the rest of their usual party was asleep. The look on Zel's face the next morning upon realizing he was human would be worth the effort. She still hadn't been able to decide if he would become giddy with delight or pass out from shock. They'd have no explanation, though. Lina had figured on suggesting the curse's potency had ended and simply worn off. Gourry would believe her. With a few careful comments on the nature of magic, she could convince Amelia. Zelgadis would never believe it, but who said he'd have to? He'd be human and might simply give up looking for an explanation with his goal achieved.

"Heh. Sure, yeah. A reward sounds like a fair trade, don't you think?" She hazarded a glance at him. He smiled.

"What did you have in mind?" The sorceress gaped at him. How did he keep throwing her guard down like that? He raised a hand to forestall her queries. "Lina, you write me this spell and you deserve anything that I have the power to give you."

She gaped at him. She couldn't let him try and pay her back! This cure meant everything to him, which was why she didn't want him to know she was doing it in the first place! It was bad enough she couldn't get Gourry to leave her alone with his chivalric honor thing, but she didn't want Zel feeling beholden to her! How to get this idea out of his stone head?

"Dinner." She suddenly responded, crossing her arms and eyeing Zelgadis smugly. He blinked at her. "Treat me to dinner when and if I finish the counterspell."

The chimera's gaze raked across her form. He seemed to be trying to disclose the sincerity of her suggestion. She looked so proud of herself, was there something to this he just wasn't catching? Dinner? That was all she wanted?

Zelgadis chuckled, "Sure, dinner it is."

He picked up the discarded spell and began to study it more closely. Lina allowed him to do so, finally getting the rest of her papers tucked away into the pockets of her cape. He was studying that spell awful intently, just what did he expect to find in it at this point?

"It's not completed, Zel. It won't be for a long time." She warned. He continued to eye the lines on the parchment.

"This looks almost finished."

"It's not."

"But--"

"I said it's incomplete!" She snapped, turning away irritably. Zelgadis stared at her outburst, as Lina turned red with anger. "That spell might, if I were very lucky, make you human. But it would probably strip you of all magical capacity and destroy your musculature form. There's a good likelihood that spell would kill you." She glared at him openly. "That's assuming it works! I haven't finished the power requirement or limitation computations yet. There's a large possibility that spell's nothing more than a chill up your spine and a light show." She shrugged helplessly, suddenly drained and completely honest.

"It'll probably be years until I can format it to work properly. And of course, edit the variation not only to make you human but also leave you with decent capacities in the fields where you'll lose attributes. There's," she gulped, "There's even a possibility I can't make it work. As much as I'd like to think my skill matches Rezo's, he was far older and more experienced than I am. As far as I can tell, he tailored the spell specifically for this one use." Lina turned her back to Zelgadis and the Lighting spells, putting out her own.

"So now do you see why I didn't tell you?"

They both were silent. She wrapped her arms tightly around her, both hating the silence that fell and glad for it. She'd upset herself talking about it. Looking up she examined the stars.

Instead of reading them to figure the time, she simply stared at the dim points of light. They were pretty and she allowed her eyes to wander across the mosaic, not paying attention to constellations or forms. She thought she could see some clouds against the night sky, but it was hard to tell. The crescent moon hung low to the west, dawn would probably come before Zel's watch ended. She probably should sleep while she still had the opportunity.

She ran her fingers across her eyes. They were still dry, but she had the urge to do so anyway. Running her fingers through her hair, Lina started to move to her bedroll between Amelia and Syphiel. She heard Zelgadis move, but figured he was just settling in for his watch. He liked this watch for some reason and often got it because no one else liked the early wake up and Gourry couldn't be counted on to stay up at these hours.

"Lina, wait." Zelgadis wrapped his hand around her upper arm. She halted at his request, looking up over her shoulder. Yet he moved completely behind her, out of her clear visual field, restraining the other arm as well. The sorceress struggled against him, but the chimera didn't relent.

"ZEL!"

"I'm sorry Lina." He said softly, "I just got carried away for a moment." Lina stopped struggling, quiet and still, listening to Zel. "I understand that spell will take a long time to write, I just saw a cure in my grasp again. And I, well . . . I . . . "

He swallowed and loosening his grasp, he slid his arms around her waist and held her close for a quick moment. Zelgadis sighed lightly.

"Thank you, Lina." He whispered, quickly letting her go. She turned around to find him walking back to where his Lighting spell hung.

"Zel!" He looked up to see her meet his gaze and smile. "Anytime."

Lina returned to her bedroll, tucking herself in and pulling the cover to her chin. She found herself in a guilt free slumber within moments. And Zelgadis smiled as he began his watch, a sheet of parchment in his hand.

Pulling a pen from his cloak, he began making notations. He may not need to search for his cure anymore, but he could help Lina with writing it.


End file.
